As soon as King Aja is firmly established on his throne, Raghu retires to a hermitage to prepare for the death of his mortal part. After some years of religious meditation he is released, attaining union with the eternal spirit which is beyond all darkness. His obsequies are performed by his dutiful son. Indumati gives birth to a splendid boy, who is named Dasharatha. One day, as the queen is playing with her husband in the garden, a wreath of magic flowers falls upon her from heaven, and she dies. The stricken king clasps the body of his dead beloved, and laments over her.
If flowers that hardly touch the body, slay it,
The simplest instruments of fate may bring
Destruction, and we have no power to stay it;
Then must we live in fear of everything?
No! Death was right. He spared the sterner anguish;
Through gentle flowers your gentle life was lost
As I have seen the lotus fade and languish
When smitten by the slow and silent frost.
Yet God is hard. With unforgiving rigour
He forged a bolt to crush this heart of mine;
He left the sturdy tree its living vigour,
But stripped away and slew the clinging vine.
Through all the years, dear, you would not reprove me,
Though I offended. Can you go away
Sudden, without a word? I know you love me,
And I have not offended you to-day.
You surely thought me faithless, to be banished
As light-of-love and gambler, from your life,
Because without a farewell word, you vanished
And never will return, sweet-smiling wife.
The warmth and blush that followed after kisses
Is still upon her face, to madden me;
For life is gone, 'tis only life she misses.
A curse upon such life's uncertainty!
I never wronged you with a thought unspoken,
Still less with actions. Whither are you flown?
Though king in name, I am a man heartbroken,
For power and love took root in you alone.
Your bee-black hair from which the flowers are peeping,
Dear, wavy hair that I have loved so well,
Stirs in the wind until I think you sleeping,
Soon to return and make my glad heart swell.
Awake, my love! Let only life be given,
And choking griefs that stifle now, will flee
As darkness from the mountain-cave is driven
By magic herbs that glitter brilliantly.
The silent face, round which the curls are keeping
Their scattered watch, is sad to look upon
As in the night some lonely lily, sleeping
When musically humming bees are gone.
The girdle that from girlhood has befriended
You, in love-secrets wise, discreet, and true,
No longer tinkles, now your dance is ended,
Faithful in life, in dying faithful too.
Your low, sweet voice to nightingales was given;
Your idly graceful movement to the swans;
Your grace to fluttering vines, dear wife in heaven;
Your trustful, wide-eyed glances to the fawns:
You left your charms on earth, that I, reminded
By them, might be consoled though you depart;
But vainly! Far from you, by sorrow blinded,
I find no prop of comfort for my heart.
Remember how you planned to make a wedding,
Giving the vine-bride to her mango-tree;
Before that happy day, dear, you are treading
The path with no return. It should not be.
And this ashoka-tree that you have tended
With eager longing for the blossoms red--
How can I twine the flowers that should have blended
With living curls, in garlands for the dead?
The tree remembers how the anklets, tinkling
On graceful feet, delighted other years;
Sad now he droops, your form with sorrow sprinkling,
And sheds his blossoms in a rain of tears.
Joy's sun is down, all love is fallen and perished,
The song of life is sung, the spring is dead,
Gone is the use of gems that once you cherished,
And empty, ever empty, is my bed.
You were my comrade gay, my home, my treasure,
You were my bosom's friend, in all things true,
My best-loved pupil in the arts of pleasure:
Stern death took all I had in taking you.
Still am I king, and rich in kingly fashion,
Yet lacking you, am poor the long years through;
I cannot now be won to any passion,
For all my passions centred, dear, in you.
Aja commits the body of his beloved queen to the flames. A holy hermit comes to tell the king that his wife had been a nymph of heaven in a former existence, and that she has now returned to her home. But Aja cannot be comforted. He lives eight weary years for the sake of his young son, then is reunited with his queen in Paradise.